It's official, sports fans—Ars has touched down in Las Vegas. We'll be schlepping around town over the next week, liveblogging the keynote, and just generally keeping you guys informed about all the cool stuff happening. We won't be going alone though—we'll each be packing our own personal arsenal of stuff to help us get our journalism on. Here's a peek into what a few of us are hauling around.

Associate Writer Andrew Cunningham

I'm not bringing anything too out-of-the-ordinary to CES this year—I'll have my 2012 MacBook Air, my iPhone 4S packed in its affordable-but-indestructible Otterbox Impact case, and my trusty Nexus 7 (I rarely leave that behind when I go on trips). This year, I've also got a Mophie JuicePack Powerstation for on-the-go phone charging—I added it to my Christmas list not long after reading Jacqui's take on the mobile battery pack.

In the camera bag is a Canon EOS Rebel T3i, its kit lens, and a 50mm lens (don't leave home without one). Also stowed in its many pockets are a couple of spare batteries, its charger, a USB cable for tethering, and enough SD cards to build a small house out of.

When I saw this small pile of equipment on the floor of my office, I caught myself thinking I was packing pretty light. I'm not sure what that says about me.

Associate Writer Chris Foresman

This year I find out if the trade-off between an 11" MacBook Air and the 13" Retina MacBook Pro was worth the extra weight—I'm counting on the extra three hours or so of battery life to last me through the long days at CES. I've had mixed luck with my old Canon 20D in the past, as well as my Olympus E-P3, so this year I'm going all out with a Canon 6D and a 24-105mm f/4 L lens. With the exceptional low-light shooting, I'm leaving all my other lenses and flashes at home to get things as simple as possible. Since the Canon 6D uses SD cards and the Retina MacBook Pro has one built in, I also don't need to carry around an extra card reader.

In the past, I've brought an iPad, an extra camera, and a 3G hotspot. This year, I'm counting on my iPhone 5 to fill in all those needs (fingers crossed, I prostrate before the tech gods that nothing happens to it). I'm a little nervous not having extra backups, but in the last three years at CES, I found having that stuff only adds extra weight and extra stuff to keep track of (read: not lose).

Outside of the laptop, camera, and iPhone, I have a couple necessary chargers, my camera's USB cable (for tethered shooting if needed), and an extra set of headphones for the plane ride there and back. Everything is stuffed in my trusty Chrome messenger bag for quick access.

Associate Writer Casey Johnston

A 50mm f/1.8 lens in case I need a change of pace, plus an external flash, as some photography situations in Las Vegas tend to be at night and very romantically lit.

A Belkin external charger, because no smartphone's battery is a match for when it has to constantly spin its wheels trying to get any information through either on the packed cell networks or Wi-Fi.

A Verizon Mi-Fi, to help me battle those spotty reception conditions while posting and liveblogging to the best of my abilities. (There's also a mid-2010 15-inch MacBook Pro, to post those posts and blog those blogs.)

A 16GB thumb drive, because sometimes I'm not the one who needs the pictures that are on my computer, and vice versa.

Non-tech: Shades, because Vegas is sunny. Water, because Vegas is dry. And Advil, because Vegas, and especially CES, can be mentally, emotionally, and physically painful. Sadly, there's only over-the-counter medication for one of those things.

Not pictured: my iPhone 4S, used to take this photo, and the gaggle of cords and cables that power all these objects, plus a few extra for pals in need.

Senior Reviews Editor Lee Hutchinson

You know what's hard? Taking a nice picture of your nice camera without using your nice camera. For this CES, I'll be hauling a 2010-era 13" MacBook Air, my aging iPhone 4, and a Canon T3i for snapping the pictures. I've got a fancy 24-105mm f/4L lens for walking around, coupled with a Speedlite 430EX II for extra flashiness. I'm also bringing along the "nifty fifty" 50mm f/1.8 that I'm pretty sure every single person on the planet owns.

My floor gear for CES will all live inside a Case Logic SLRC-205 sling (except for the MBA, obviously, which gets its own sleeve). Also pictured are some earbuds, a gray card set, a 64GB USB stick for holding all of the datas, new fancy business cards, a microfiber cloth to keep everything fingerprint-free, and some quality reading material to stave off boredom (seriously, Cherryh is my favorite, and the Chanur series is her absolute best work). Not pictured are the chargers and wall warts for all of this stuff, or my portable apothecary. Not sure how Casey can get by with just Advil—I bring along the whole damn medicine cabinet when I travel!

Reviews Editor Florence Ion

CES is always an event for which I plan literally months ahead of time. This year, I’m packing an Olympus tape recorder with expandable memory (finally putting that 2GB microSD memory card to good use), a Logitech MX Anywhere portable mouse, my 11-inch MacBook Air with 4GB of RAM, and two Mi-Fis—one with Verizon service and one that utilizes AT&T. I’m always keen to pack extra USB cords, an SD card reader to download pictures from my Canon Rebel T3i DSLR (not pictured), and ear phones to drown out the incessant chatter in the press room. I’ll also be carrying my Samsung Galaxy S III around the show floor to Instagram photos with my long-lost journalist friends, as well as any cool products I want to show off to the folks back home. Of course, just because everything else in my bag is digital doesn’t mean my note-taking strategy is—I have my CES meetings written down in a Moleskine pocket calendar and notes with articles ideas in a Field Notes notebook.

Tech Policy Editor Joe Mullin

This is the only computer I own, an HP Pavilion DM4 (I have an Ars-owned iMac I use for work at home). I covered four trials in 2012 and bought this laptop with trial coverage in mind. One of them I ended up covering with a notepad, but this handled the other three. Its main advantages are that it has good battery life and is relatively lightweight, which also pays off at conferences. I also bring along an extra battery, which means I know I can do a 12-hour workday without re-charging.

Covering it for Secrets of Home Theater (and AnandTech a bit) this year, I'm packing a 2010-11" Macbook Air (replacing this year), iPhone 5, Sony NEX-6, USB Ethernet adapter (last year my hotel lacked WiFi), Monoprice 5000 mAh battery pack (the iPhone never survives, and the camera can use it), Belkin 3 outlet + 2 USB adapter, notepad, pens, USB drive (with FLAC audio for the Venetian), Clif bars, and good shoes. Everything fits in a small Tom Bihn bag, doesn't slow me down, and the Air is small enough to use on the CES shuttle busses.

I have a Pavilion DV7 the only good thing I can say about it is the heat it produces you could probably use as nuclear generator!

My dv6 is the same, but with a bonus: the fan sound could be used as a stand-in for a jet engine on mine. Maybe she was lucky and got a non-terrible HP, though (if it's lasted 3 years already, I'm guessing so).

It's surprising to see that only one writer brought along analog materials. It's never a bad idea to have those, in my opinion. Also, no Nikon love?

Good luck with the built in SD card reader Chris, my new 6D can't transfer via the built in card reader in OS X .8 (early 2011 15"). Works fine on my bootcamp partition though. Already taking it in cause its unacceptable!

Good luck with the built in SD card reader Chris, my new 6D can't transfer via the built in card reader in OS X .8 (early 2011 15"). Works fine on my bootcamp partition though. Already taking it in cause its unacceptable!

It's been working fine for me on my 13" Retina MacBook Pro running 10.8.2. Downloaded into both iPhoto and Lightroom without a hitch.

How about doing a review of DSLR, or may be DSLR vs. point and shoot?Would be really intrested in the point of view of a travelling and need good photos to send back to base or to the cloud.As big file sizes high quality snaps are probably not very data tariff friendly.

"Look at our cool gear" fluff articles like these are why I don't visit sites like Engadget or Kotaku. Please don't stoop to this, Ars.

To be fair this isn't just "What's your regular gear" or "What stuff do you pack in your bag". It's been done for a specific annual event, which I'm assuming they've done the same for in the past, which gives an interesting log of how equipment people use for this kind of thing shifts over time